55
I spin around the ballroom. The world is a glittering wonderland, and as I whirl in the warmth of Max’s arms the gold and silver sparkles and shines. I’m dizzy with the glitter of snowflakes and ice crystals and diamonds lighting silver Christmas trees.
Max holds me close, his hand settled in the curve of my spine. The pressure, the heat of his hand through the silky waterfall of my gold dress, keeps me anchored in the moment. I lean my head against his shoulder and breathe him in. The warm leather and spiced shaving soap, the sophistication and humor. He’s in a tuxedo, and the black brings out the dark loneliness that still lurks in him. I can see it there. He’s like his family’s estate—a giant, cavernous home, stately and magnificent, but empty. It echoes with the footsteps of ghosts and the breeze of forgotten laughter. Someday someone will step inside, throw on the lights, and burn away all the dust and all the ghosts. They’ll fill his home and his life with love.
But that person, it’s not me.
I press my hands into the warmth of his wool tuxedo and close my eyes as we slow to a quiet, rocking dance. We’re near the ice sculpture garden at the edge of the ballroom. There are snowflakes, Christmas trees, presents, and ice trains. And there’s a giant, twelve-foot-circumference pocket watch carved from ice. The glitter-coated silver hands tick the minutes away. It’s nearly midnight.
“Happy Christmas Eve,” Max says, his cheek brushing the top of my head. His chest rumbles as he speaks, and I press my face to his shoulder, closing my eyes against the brightness of the ballroom.
“Happy Christmas Eve,” I whisper, my throat thick with emotion.
Around us the ballroom glistens with lights and sounds. Everyone kept to the theme and wore black tuxedoes or ballgowns of silver and gold and white. Sequins and diamanté and diamonds abound. The lights catch the sparkles and shoot prisms around the room.
The world is alight with glitter and gold.
The orchestra plays a sweet, lilting song—one that reminds me of sitting at a frost-covered window watching the snow fall over a great, lonely field, where there are no birds, no people, no trees, nothing but snow, covering the memories of summer.
“I was wondering,” Max begins, tilting his head and speaking in a low, quiet voice, “if you had an answer.” He looks around the ballroom, at the dreamland around us. The sparkling scent of champagne and white-chocolate-dipped gingerbread swirls past.
I look up at him then. At the depths of his brown eyes, at the hawkish line of his jaw, and the softness of his mouth as he stares down at me. His hand rubs a slow circle over the curve of my back.
He holds me close.
And it’s strange, because even though he’s holding me, I feel alone.
How is it that you can be in the arms of someone you love, yet feel so lonely?
I hold onto him—the friendship I rely on, the love we share—and I reach up and brush a hand across his face. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
His eyes flicker. A shadow passes through them and I see a door closing, a choice, a life not taken. He tilts his head close, steering us further toward the quiet edge of the ballroom, where the glitter and prisms fade.
He smiles down at me. “I thought that might be your answer.”
“I wish it weren’t,” I tell him. “But I wouldn’t make you happy. Not really. And I love you too much to confine you to a life you’d regret.”
“Fiona,” he says, stroking his hand down the silk of my dress. “I’m not waiting for happiness.”
“Someday you will be. That’s my wish for you. That you’ll find your happiness. I’ll be so glad when you do. I’ll be the happiest person in the world for you.”
He shakes his head. “What about your happiness?”
I glance across the ballroom. Daniel’s there, dancing with a French actress. He’s laughing and I imagine dreaming about spending tomorrow with us eating Christmas dinner and playing in the snow. Mila’s upstairs, tucked in and asleep, watched over by Annemarie, dreaming, I’m sure, of presents and stockings and chocolate sauce poured over waffles.
I look back up at Max, my best friend. “I’m happy. It’s Christmas Eve. I try always to be happy on Christmas Eve.”
At that Max gives a rueful smile. “So. Friends.”
I nod, holding him tight. “Friends.”
“I won’t ask again, but . . .” He looks over the room, at the shimmering light. “Was it the man from your dreams? I never managed to light you up like he did.”
I stare at Max, a slow tug pulling at me, a hollow note in my chest. I shake my head. “What man?”
He smiles down at me, a lock of black hair falling over his forehead. “The one that gave you sparks. I tried for months to give you what one dream did.”
I search through my memory, trying to recall the dream he’s talking about. I remember us sitting under a purple sky, drinking wine, toasting sparks and dreams, but I don’t remember what my dreams were about.
If I concentrate on it too long, there’s an ache almost too great to bear. So I let it slide away, receding like the tide.
“No,” I tell him. “I don’t remember my dreams. I don’t remember sparks. They’d be nice, though, I think.”
Max touches my cheek. “Tell me when you find them. I’ll be happy for you.”
“Good. We can grow old being happy for each other.”
The music ends then, a slow sighing, a gentle snowflake falling to the muted silence of deep white snow.
There’s the quiet sigh, the silence just after the music ends.
I pause. Hold still in the quiet.
There’s something there. Something hovering at the edges of my mind ever since I woke up. It’s as if I heard the most beautiful song in the world. As if I was surrounded by a melody that swept me up, wrapped me in its warmth, and filled my heart with love. It’s as if I once heard the greatest beauty, saw the most beautiful love, but now it’s gone—and I don’t remember the music. I don’t remember the song or the sight. I only have a memory of a lost feeling. A distant echo of something I once heard. The harder I try to capture it, the further it slips away. And so I can only feel the pang of a loss so great my heart aches—for something—something beautiful. . . It aches for a song I can’t remember, but know I loved.
It’s like a dream, isn’t it?
In dreams, we experience everything we’re afraid to in real life. In dreams we can fly, we can defeat dragons, we can go back in time, we can see our loved ones who are dead and gone, we can talk to a crowd while naked on a stage, and we can even fall in love.
But then we forget our dreams and we’re left only with a feeling.
I glance over at the ice clock.
11:48 p.m.
I stare at the face of the clock and at the swirl of silvers and golds reflected in the ice. I’m struck by the moment.
Then the minute hand shifts, stutters forward, and the time passes.
I look up at Max, gently gripping the smooth wool of his tuxedo. “Do you ever feel,” I ask, “as if you’ve lost something, but you don’t know what?”
He smiles down at me. “All the time.”
Then the music starts again. The last song of the night, before midnight strikes and Christmas arrives.
Max steps back, out of our dancing embrace, and I can see in the way he holds himself and the way he looks at me that we’re friends again—only friends.
Then he takes my arm and we walk back into the ocean of dancing, glittering people celebrating the light of the season and the passing of time.